Thanks, y' all for all the feedback, tips and info!

I might have a lucky break and get my hands on the actual camera my uncle used - I believe I might have retraced its whereabouts I'll still follow all your pointers to check if it's still in working order, though. (otherwise it'll be nice for emotional value, etc.)

In the remote event you're curious: a collection of images taken with this camera are here.

 The most important part to check is the lens. Cock it and fire it, listen to it at various speeds, The time should be noticeably different at the slower speeds. The slow speeds will go bad first. Open the lens and stop it down- the blades should all close down evenly. Make sure you can focus across the entire frame. Focus on a newspaper- it's a quick way to see lens aberrations.
   Then check the bellows. Remove the lens and hold the bellows near a strong bright light. Throw a dark cloth over your head so the only thing you can see is the inside of the bellows. Any pinholes will ruin your shots. ANY pinholes. You can tape them as a stopgap, but the tape will work loose on your most important shot.
   Check that the movements are smooth and even, no corrosion on rails, and that you can lock up the various movements. Make sure the springs on the film holder are strong. It should be a very tight fit to open the film holder. Otherwise, you will get light leaks as you remove the slide.
   This is a 4x5 camera. Unless you are familiar with 4x5 film, you need to learn how to load and unload this film ,as well as how and where to get ti processed. If this is the wartime Graflex, i don't think the roll film back will fit, but I'm not sure.
Keep in mind there were many models of this camera. That prices seems high. I would only pay that for something in museum or collectible quality condition.

Thanks a lot for that info, really appreciated! I'll definitely keep those in mind when I go over!

You have so many things to learn

Don't we all, don't we all... And now I already know a bit more than that antique dealer guy

I addressed this issue directly with stockpodium, and received a pretty swift response:

Please excuse us for the inconvenience caused.

We actually start reselling images from 123RF in a few weeks and pretty soon we will have our watermark on the images (according to 123RF resale terms).

To handle the situation right now we just started using the watermarks of 123RF again. Please confrim that everything looks OK now at your side as well.

Thanks for the valuable and timely feedback and hope you will get lots of downloads/money thanks to our service.

It seems they have, already, placed a 123rf watermark over the images. A positive experience!

Apart from Easy Release, I don't think there aren't that many. iStock has it's own iPhone app, and Alamy and Getty have an iPad thingy. Other than that, I'm unaware of any other specific stock photography related apps.

I do use my iPad to track ideas, plan and script shoots, though, as well as use a number of portfolio apps to showcase my work to pr(prospected) customers, though.

I initially registered via the US site, thus getting paid in USD, but decided to make the switch to Euro.

I contacted support with a (thought through) request / approach (Uploading all images  - roughly 1500 in total - to the new account, then closing the old account via FT's support, and only then submitting the uploaded images to the new account)

My findings:
- Uploading all images prior to submitting the lot took a lot of time, but hardly any effort (upload speed issue)
- FT support closed the old account within a day or two
- Submitting them took less time - MR's are conveniently stored by upload date, and with that knowledge from my old account, I took that into account on determining the upload order). In total, it took me about 12 hrs.
- Review was swift; the first images were already approved before I finished submitting the lot.
- More images were accepted, compared to the old portfolio. A lucky break, I guess.
- Sales levels improved considerably. Not sure why, they just did.

In hindsight, I think it was worth the effort.

Quote from: lisafx on October 08, 2010, 09:49

If I was just starting out I would stick with the top 4 or maybe top 6.  Only worry with the smaller sites once you are up and running well on the big earners. 

I agree absolutely...  I too started with.. wow, I lost count.. 10, 11, more?  .... most of them were a complete waste of time.. now the bulk of my stock income comes out of SS & IS.   8)tom

I only partially agree. Although I started with the big 4-6, some small, unknown sites, perform really well for me. An example is a small - local - Dutch site, De Nationale Beeldbank. Mostly editorial stuff, but consistently in our top 5 earners for over a year now, battling with FT for the 4th spot, way ahead of number 6. A local market, allowing for a different approach, and a different clientele. They provided what I hoped CC would do - revenue wise.

Seeing the difference in performance in the monthly breakdown of percentages, especially across the smaller sites, I believe it really depends on the styling, diversification and type of images in your portfolio. That makes it extremely difficult to predict which sites are worth your while to submit to.

I understand you are frustrated about a LCV rejection. However, I don't agree with your assessment of this person's portfolio, nor with your conclusions about Shutterstock's acceptance policies. Trashing someone else's portfolio to substantiate an - as far as I'm concerned - unsubstantiated claim is uncool.

I guess you must be doing something differently than I am. I find 123RF's method by far the easiest and quickest (once I noticed the site doesn't need an OK button, I'll give you that)

Here's what I do:
1. Upload all releases prior to transferring files from FTP to the submit page.
2. Transfer the files from FTP to the Submit page
3. Select all model releases relevant to the images I'm about to submit (even if a model only appears once in a series)
4. Check the appropriate boxes for the models in a particular image
5. Navigate away from the page.

Always works for me.

Very good month at IS (BME), DT (BME), SS, FT and Veer. Even 123RF excelled (Another BME)
CanStockPhoto is a bit of a dissapointment, this month, due to the lack of larger Fotosearch downloads, otherwise performing nicely in numbers
BS has shown no movement for over a year.

Apparently, they want us to contact them via Twitter Direct Message. I've been trying to get in touch with them that way, that doesn't seem to trigger any responses from support either.

Bump.

I think the initiative for microstockcharts.com should be rewarded and expanded. With a newsletter and a post on MSG, how come only 13 people out of 450+ users so far have responded?

And by the looks of the istock charts posted above, more people are actually taking it! (I am not sure where that istock chart data comes from)

Although I have no screendump, I checked back on istockcharts.de on 8 September, and the total files went down by about 10k. Given all weekly uploads, and the Agency collection approvals (for so far they haven't been rejected afterwards), the total number of files have gone up again since.

I can only agree that it's a "fait accomplis". We still have to make up our minds, but after 10 days of tossing ideas about, I think its safe to conclude that:
1. It was so much easier to give thinkstock the big finger after Getty killed StockXpert, and cut us on subscriptions, than it'll be to say farewell to iStock, because of reasons given by Phil.
2. Despite all havoc on both MSG and the iStock forums, Very few people actually put their money where their mouth is.
3. Many contributors still have no clue what's going on, or haven't given it serious thought. (Likely to be the majority of contributors, given the stats)
4. I'm beginning to see similarities between the course of reasoning since 7 September on both forums and the Stockholm syndrome. Despite all muscular language after the first and second announcement by iStock, We are, in fact, held hostage, and most of us will eventually accept the new terms, and will begin to (try to) see the "good" in the new structure.

There isn't any good. Once we've (or most of us) have accepted the new structure, we'll be hit by more bad news.

Playing advocate of the devil: iStock's timing of this news is immaculate. September sales are usually better than the summer slow-down, and our sales are up considerably compared to previous months. Even with a 3% downgrade of revenues, we'll still make a BME.

That does sum it up nicely. I like short thoughts.